Anna Begins
by upthenorthmountain
Summary: Inspired by the Counting Crows song 'Anna Begins'. Modern AU.
1. Chapter 1

A lot of new guests arrive on a Saturday. All evening she's been in the hotel bar - not alone, with a couple of other young women, but she's the one he can't stop looking at. When she comes up to get a drink she smiles at him and for once the smile he gives back is genuine.

After the bar closes he finds her outside, leaning on the fence overlooking the gardens. "I just went through a bad break-up," she tells him. "Some friends persuaded me to come away with them, said it would be fun. But I don't ski, so I guess I'll be hanging around the hotel a lot."

He wouldn't call himself particularly good-looking but he seems to be a type, or at least a certain kind of woman seems to find him attractive enough. He's seen that look in a lot of pretty eyes - weighing him up, thinking _yes, this one, why not, I'm on holiday. _He's usually happy enough to oblige, although normally he'd wait until closer to the end of their trip, to avoid complications, recriminations. But in the moonlight her expression looks almost like Marte's and it's so easy to hold her, to kiss her, to go back to her room and do what's expected of him.

Now he's going to have to spend a fortnight avoiding her. Perfect.

* * *

The next afternoon he's on the bar again when she comes downstairs to read and drink hot chocolate. He's expecting either the cold shoulder or clinginess, based on past experiences, but she's warm and friendly with just a hint of something more in her smile.

When her friends finish their skiing she leaves with them but not before coming over and reminding him of her room number. He must look surprised because she hesitates, biting her lip, before saying "I just thought - never mind." She turns and goes and all he can think about all evening, as he serves drinks and collects glasses and smiles at guests, is how she bit her lip that same exact way when he first thrust into her the night before.

He goes to her room.

* * *

He can't remember her name so he looks it up in the hotel register. The first time he uses it she laughs at his pronunciation - Ah-na - and he tries to say it the way she does but he forgets and after a couple of times she stops correcting him. She claims not to be able to hear the difference between the ways they pronounce his name and he doesn't really care, he just likes the sound of it from her lips.

He doesn't know if this is how she was planning to spend her holiday but he doesn't mind, he doesn't mind at all; she's beautiful and enthusiastic and generous in bed, and in the afternoons she sits in the bar and talks to him when he isn't busy (he's fairly sure she sleeps all morning). She becomes a habit surprisingly quickly and when he starts his shift she's the first person he always looks for. And she's never far away.

* * *

"Anna, I can't believe you came all the way to Lillehammer just to have a fling with the ski instructor."

He's behind the bar, stacking clean glasses. Anna has her back to him but her friend doesn't; maybe she doesn't care or maybe she thinks his English isn't very good (his English is perfect).

"He's not a ski instructor."

"No, he's a _waiter_, that's even more of a ridiculous cliché."

"Whatever. I bet I'm having more fun on this holiday than you are."

* * *

"Who's Marte?" she says, running her finger over the tattoo on his arm.

"My fiancee," he says without thinking, and she starts back with a look of horror on her face.

"_Ex_-fiancee," he clarifies quickly. "She died last year. A car accident."

"Oh! Oh. God, I'm sorry. How awful."

Not the first woman he's told, of course, and most of them in situations like this one; post-coital and in the mood for confidences. He's not sure how many believed him. Not that it matters.

Anna believes him, though, and gives him a considering look that makes him blush and look away.

* * *

It's his day off and he needs to go and see his mother and go to the bank and do some laundry but instead he spends all day with Anna, in her room, in her bed. In-between he listens to her talk but he can't stop touching her, her arm, her face, her waist; not even intending to start anything although often it does. He wants to learn every detail of her body, commit her to memory, and he refuses to think about why it matters so much.

"A man could fall in love with you if he wasn't careful," he says as he pulls on his shirt, sitting on the edge of her bed.

"How careful do you plan on being?" she says, and he doesn't have an answer for her.

That night in his own bed he can't sleep, and he lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. He isn't ready for this. It's been a year. But he isn't ready.

* * *

"It's been a year since Marte died," Sven says as they set the tables for dinner. "I know what you're normally like but you could make an exception for this one. You like her."

"I like fucking her," he says, "and that's all it is."

"Jesus, Kristoff, it doesn't have to be all or nothing."

"She's going back to England on Saturday so it doesn't matter, either way."

"The internet exists. Phones exist. Get her number, for god's sake. Her Facebook, her Skype, whatever."

* * *

She talks in her sleep.

He didn't intend to stay but here he is, listening to her mumbling to herself, and he finds himself smiling. He carefully strokes her hair back from her face and she sighs, mutters something, then buries her head in his chest. His arm goes round her automatically.

He needs to leave. But outside he can see the snow falling through the gap in the curtains, and Anna is warm and soft and sleeping in his arms, and before he knows it it's morning and they've been together all night.

* * *

"I'd like to stay in touch," she says as he's leaving her room. "I know we live pretty far apart but - we have something here, don't you think?"

He says nothing.

"Kristoff."

"I think we've had some fun," he says slowly, "but now you're going home."

"_Kristoff."_

Silence.

"We all have pasts, Kristoff, we've all been hurt, you can't just give up on love -"

The word hangs in the air between them.

"What would you know about love," he says, and then he's on the other side of the door and he wants to run. And he wants to go back in and tell her he's sorry. And he knows he has maybe a minute to decide which way he's going to go before it'll be too late anyway.

* * *

She flies home.

And he works and eats and sleeps and works, and waits for her to fade away.


	2. Chapter 2

"Why not London? Doesn't your friend live there?"

"Olaf?"

"That's right, Olaf. You speak English. It'll do you good."

She looks at her son and her heart breaks for him. She had thought he was doing better but it seems that she was wrong. The last few weeks he's drawn back into himself and it scares her.

"You know I worry about you, sweetheart."

"I know."

"You'll think about it."

"I will."

* * *

London is wet and grey and dirty. Kristoff sleeps on Olaf's sofabed and finds a job in a club. He doesn't even know what he's doing here; he doesn't know her address, he's not even certain of her surname (though he could draw a detailed map of the freckles on her shoulders, the curve of her hips, the line of her jaw). Literally millions of people live in London. Not that he's looking for her; he's just trying to get his mother off his back, stop her looking at him with those anxious eyes. And this is as good a destination as any. He's not looking for her.

* * *

He sees her before she sees him. The club is busy but she's managed to get her elbows on the bar, and she's looking away, rummaging for her purse, when she first speaks. "Oh, hi, please could I have -" Then she looks up and straight at him. "-_ you._"

It's a long moment, and neither of them speak; all he can think is that he could reach out over the bar and touch her, her hand or her face. He could say anything, to her, right now.

As he opens his mouth a hand thumps down on her shoulder and spins her round. "Anna! Don't bother, we're going to the Crown, might be able to actually sit down, when did we become old people! Come on," and she's steered away. He loses sight of her in the crowd almost immediately.

* * *

It's gone 2am and he's collecting abandoned glasses after closing. The place feels suddenly very quiet and he can hear the doorman talking to the manager.

"...told her, there's no one by that name here."

"The new barman's called Chris. And he's from Sweden or somewhere, it could be."

"Ask him, then."

"Here, Chris!"

He walks over. "Yes?"

"Is Chris short for anything?"

"Kristoff. And I'm Norwegian."

"Whatever." He plucks the card from the doorman and hands it over. "Someone left this for you earlier. Ginger bird but what can you do."

"Thanks."

It's a business card. On the front in very serious letters it says 'ANNA RENDELL - MARKETING DIRECTOR - RENDELL INDUSTRIES' but on the back is scribbled in blotchy biro 'for KRISTOFF from ANNA' and a string of numbers.

"You must have made an impression, she wasn't in here five minutes," the doorman says.

"We've met before," Kristoff replies, tucking the card into his pocket.

* * *

She doesn't come back and he understands that she's deliberately leaving the choice up to him (if he thought she didn't care, he just has to remember the look on her face when she saw him at the bar).

But she's always known where to find him (although if she'd rung the hotel, he realises, they'd just have told her he didn't work there any more).

He keeps the card in his wallet (and tells himself that calling the number on it, starting something intentionally, would be disloyal when really it's just terrifying).

* * *

A week passes. Two.

He tells himself he can't let anyone have that kind of power over him again.

In his heart he knows it's already far too late.

* * *

In the end, he looks up her workplace and finds out that it's only round the corner from the bar.

In the end, he finds himself standing outside at five o'clock, as men and women stream past him in suits.

In the end, she sees him and nearly drops her bag, before running over to throw herself into his arms, whispering _oh thank god_ into his chest.

And he holds her, and it isn't the end. It's the beginning.


	3. Haunted

At first Kristoff tells his mother that he met Anna in London. That he was working in the bar, and she came in, and it went from there. After further questioning he was forced to admit to having previously met her in Lillehammer at the hotel; and regretted giving up the information after his mother spent hours chattering on about true love and serendipity. He still doesn't want to hear it; the scars are still there, the cut was too deep. Maybe he'll always be broken.

You don't get over something like that, you just get past it. He read that somewhere.

* * *

The first Christmas he went back to Norway alone, but the second, Anna comes with him. She's cheerful and enthusiastic about spending Christmas in another country; quizzes him about traditions and food and what she should wear, what she should bring. She speaks a little bit of Norwegian by now but she practises, insists on him speaking the language at home, walks round muttering _hyggelig å treffe deg__. God Jul._

The flight is short and his parents collect them at the airport. His mother hugs Anna and between them they find enough common language to talk all the way to the car. Kristoff carries their suitcases and follows behind, next to his father, a man of fewer words. Kristoff has lived long enough in England now that it feels strange to be back; he keeps thinking _oh, those people are speaking Norwegian_ then mentally kicking himself.

Last year was hard, even when he knew Anna was waiting for him back in London. This year he hopes her presence will smooth over some of those jagged edges. But now she's here he's wondering if it'll just make everything worse.

* * *

Kristoff's mother directs her up the stairs, second door on the left. She's been told this is Kristoff's old room but it's clearly the spare room now, the top of the dresser empty except for a small vase of flowers on an embroidered mat, the shelves holding a few books that presumably aren't wanted elsewhere. The bed has been made up with a crisp white duvet.

There is one other item, on the bedside table - on Anna's side, although Mrs Bjorgman wouldn't know that, of course. A framed photograph. Anna picks it up. It's Kristoff, and he's looking at a young woman with dark hair. She's smiling at the camera, and Anna recognises her, from other photos - Marte Nilssen. The other photos had been of her alone, though, and she hasn't seen this one before.

Kristoff is looking at Marte with an expression that makes Anna's heart hurt. She's caught him looking at her like that, from the corner of her eye, but that almost makes it worse - here the camera has perfectly captured his look of love, of warmth, of adoration. And she had known, of course she had known, that Kristoff loved Marte - he had been going to marry her, of course he had loved her - but holding the proof in her hands makes her dizzy.

"I'm sorry," she hears behind her, and it's Kristoff, with the suitcases. "I forgot that would be there. I - I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she says, though she knows her expression must tell another story. "Don't worry about it."

"I told my mother to put it away," he says, dropping the cases by the door and coming over to take the photo. He looks at it for a long moment, then strides across the room and puts it in the top dresser drawer.

"So which was it?" Anna hears herself say.

"Sorry?"

"Did you forget about it, or did you ask your mother to put it away?" It shouldn't matter but it does.

"I asked her when we arranged to come for Christmas. I forgot to check."

Anna nods.

"Are you all right?"

"Are you?"

She lifts her case onto the bed and opens it, starts to unpack her things. She works her way through them methodically, dresses in the wardrobe, other clothes in the second drawer of the dresser, toiletries on top of it. Kristoff watches her. "Anna," he says, and she bites her lip. "Anna, I love you."

"I know. I mean, I love you too." _But if she hadn't died you'd be married to her by now_, is all she can think. _She'd be the one sleeping in this bed with you tonight. And where would I be? Somewhere. Nowhere._

* * *

That night, after a wonderful dinner and a complicated Norwegian card game that Anna tries to play but loses, they climb into the bed. Kristoff is content to wrap his arms round her and go to sleep but Anna thinks of the photograph in the drawer and suddenly she needs him, badly; he says he loves her but she needs to _feel _it. Afterwards she thinks a spiteful _take that_ towards the top drawer of the dresser and then feels full of guilt. It isn't a photograph's fault. It isn't Kristoff's fault. It isn't even Marte's fault, wherever she is, if she's anywhere.

* * *

The next day is Christmas Eve and in the morning Kristoff's sister comes round with her family and they all go to the Christmas market in the town square. Kristoff's little niece accidentally calls Anna, Marte, and then looks aghast; her expression is so comical that everyone laughs it off but it's another blow, another reminder that she didn't need.

In the night she wakes and Kristoff isn't there. Downstairs she can hear his voice, and his mother's, and she's too far away to make out many words but she definitely hears her name. Anna. Then a string of Norwegian, then Marte, then Anna again. She scrunches down under the covers and tries to go back to sleep.

She hadn't expected there to be this many ghosts.

* * *

_You must understand,_ he said once before, trying to explain his reticence. _It's not you. But last time almost killed me and I don't think I could survive it again. _

_I'm not going anywhere, _she had said. _I promise_. What else could she say? But though it's not a lie it isn't the truth either, because that's not a promise she can make, that anyone can make; and she wonders which of them is properly calculating the risk. His fear seems disproportionate but maybe she's the one who's being foolish, the one dancing happily at the edge of a crevasse.

All her previous relationships ended badly, spiralled downwards and disintegrated until there was nothing left to salvage. The problem with Marte is that she will always be perfect; always young, always pretty, always devoted.

And Anna isn't even allowed to hate her.

The day after Christmas, Kristoff isn't in the house when Anna wakes. She dresses and goes downstairs, and Kristoff's mother makes her breakfast and says that he is 'out'. After a few minutes wrestling with herself, she volunteers the information that if Anna were to turn left out of the house, follow the road to the traffic lights and turn right, then a bit further on she will find him. Ten minutes walk. But he will be back soon if she wants to wait.

The air is cold and crisp; they've been here a few days and the temperature still takes her by surprise, it so rarely gets this cold in London and when it does she stays inside. The paths have been cleared and the snow is heaped at the side. The walk warms her up but she should have worn another jumper. Or maybe she should have stayed in the house.

The cemetery is bleak. The snow hasn't been cleared much past the entrance, and there are several sets of footprints leading in various directions. It takes her a while to see him at first, as the newer graves are over to the far side, and when she does she doesn't approach. She shouldn't have come. There are fresh flowers on the grave in front of him - some she recognises from a vase in his mother's front room - and he's standing looking at it with his hands in his pockets.

She should leave before he sees her, go back before he knows she was here. She's intruding.

And that's when she treads on a twig under the snow. The noise is absurdly loud in the silent cemetery and of course Kristoff looks up and of course he sees her.

Anna turns to leave, then turns back - he has a right to be here and he's seen her now - and walks over. She hesitates a couple of feet away, not knowing what to say or how to say it; she wants to touch him, to hug him or take his hand, but has no idea what would be the right thing to do.

MARTE NILSSEN, the stone says. Then some words underneath, and she recognises søster, datter - sister, daughter. From a distance the stone had looked new but close-up she can see the effects of three winters; a softening of the edges, the crispness of the lettering slightly abraded. Everything fades eventually.

"Your mother told me where you were," Anna says after a long moment. "But I shouldn't have followed you. I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

She waits. At first - nearly two years ago now - she had thought his pauses to gather his thoughts were because he was trying to think of what he wanted to say in English, but now she knows it's just part of how he is. _I need to get my words in a line_, he had said once. The more important the words, the longer it can take.

"For a long time," he says eventually, "I felt - guilty. Because I told her, I told her so many times that I would love her forever, but I lied."

"You didn't -"

He waves a hand impatiently. "I know, but - I think what I miss most is having that - faith. That _hope_, that belief that it was possible to love someone forever. For a long time I didn't believe in the future, because you can make plans, good, solid plans, and then at the last minute it can all just - end. Just like that."

Now she does step forward, and puts her hand on his arm. He looks down at her, and puts his hand over hers.

"I came here this morning," he continues, "Because I didn't want to come here again. Because there had to be a last time. Because I can see a future again, now. I'm sorry it took so long."

"I didn't realise," Anna says. "I thought - I thought we were good."

"We are. I guess in London it's different - being here - this place is haunted. Not the cemetery, Lillehammer. My mother was right, I needed to get away."

Anna shivers, involuntarily. Standing still, the cold has once more penetrated her thin English coat. Kristoff lets go of her hand and pulls her into a hug. "You're cold. We'll go back."

"Are you finished here? Do you need another minute?"

"I'm finished here." He unwraps one arm from Anna, kisses his fingers, and touches them to the top of the stone. "Let's go."


End file.
